


Book One: A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

by electroniccollectiondonut



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Daily Prophet, Gen, The Quibbler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 19:37:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19775005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electroniccollectiondonut/pseuds/electroniccollectiondonut
Summary: Voldemort returns and his followers offer young blood to fill out their ranks. A few people don't like this.The first book in my Heirs of Slytherin series.





	Book One: A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

It was early on the morning of Wednesday, August 16. Harry had already bought his school supplies for the next year and had spent most of his days since waiting for term to start. He was lying on his bed reading from a dime store paperback when a tapping on his window alerted him to the presence of his mail. He opened the window and traded a few knuts for rolled up copies of the latest editions of The Daily Prophet and The Quibbler, then saw the small brown owl on her way.

He shut the window on the cold breeze then unrolled the paper and magazine. And bumped into his desk in shock. If that had been any louder, he thought, it probably would have woken the Dursleys. But that wasn’t his primary concern right now. Because looking up at him from the front page of both the Daily Prophet and The Quibbler were Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson, and Draco Malfoy.

Their presence in the news wasn’t the surprising part. The surprising part was their appearance. They were on a wizarding street he didn’t recognise in nearly darkness. All three were dressed in sophisticated, flattering dress robes whose colors he could see on the Quibbler’s picture but not the Prophet’s, Zabini in dark maroon, Parkinson in pale pink, and Malfoy in pale blue. They also looked like they had recently been involved in a brawl.

Zabini was missing at least one tooth, blood drying down his chin, and one eye was swollen nearly shut. Parkinson had a bloody, possibly broken, nose and her short bob was tangled and sticking up in odd directions like it had been pulled. Malfoy had a badly split lip and a dark bruise that covered most of the left side of his face. All three had the bloodied knuckles to prove that they’d given at least as good as they’d got.

But even their formally bloodied and bruised appearance, strange though it was, wasn’t entirely out of the blue. No. What shocked Harry the most was that they all had their arms slung round each other, laughing like they hadn’t a care in the world. He’d never, in all four years he’d been at Hogwarts, seen a Slytherin laugh so unreservedly, let alone three at once.

He dropped the Quibbler on his desk and flicked the Prophet open to the page indicated beneath the moving photo and began to read.

**Pureblood Heirs and Heiress Mysteriously Disowned**

_ Following a private gala at Malfoy Manor on Saturday night, word began to spread of the disownment of Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini, and Draco Malfoy, three students who are about to go into their fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. _

_ “Draco’s actions at the gala brought shame to my family,” said Mr. Lucius Malfoy when questioned. _

_ Mrs. Narcissa Malfoy somewhat sadly confirmed that “he has been formally and permanently cut off from any and all Malfoy accounts.” _

_ Ms. Kathleen Zabini was quite intoxicated when asked to comment, but asked rhetorically, “Can you believe they started a brawl at dear Narcissa’s party?” _

_ Mr. Alastair Parkinson was violently unavailable for comment. _

_ The reasons for the triple disownment are as yet unclear, but our reporters are looking into it. _

_ Rita Skeeter _

Harry frowned. That hardly made sense. Voldemort had just returned and suddenly Death Eaters were disowning their children? He left the Prophet open to the article and opened the Quibbler to its version, then dug in his Hogwarts chest for paper and ink. He needed to figure out what was going on. He drew a diagram with the two intersecting circles—Hermione had told him what it was called but he couldn’t be bothered to remember—and labeled one ‘Prophet’ and the other ‘Quibbler.’ If he’d taken nothing else from Binns’ class, it was that the truth was where the different stories intersected.

The Quibbler’s formatting, colorful and swirling, made him feel the same pleasantly sick way he had when Ron had managed to blow something up in Herbology in third year. He waited for his brain to adjust, then read.

**Slytherin children of Death Eaters turned out; goodness in them after all?**

_ Three prominent blood purist families have turned out the sole inheritors of their fortunes. I’m sure you all want to know why; I know I do. Perhaps they showed a spark of goodness hitherto unknown to the rest of polite wizarding society. _

_ The facts are that the Malfoys threw a ball on Saturday evening which many Pureblood families were invited to attend. All of the families that accepted the invitations were headed by Death Eaters during You-know-who’s rise to power two decades ago. _

_ When Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, and Blaise Zabini left the ball in the small hours of Sunday morning, they had been disowned and possibly involved in a fistfight. What happened in those hours to turn them from the ideal Slytherin blood purist heirs to being turned out and labeled blood traitors? _

_ I haven’t the faintest idea, but hopefully there will be more information in next week’s issue. _

_ Xenophillius Lovegood _

Harry scratched a few words in his diagram. So Malfoy, Parkinson, and Zabini had definitely attended a party at Malfoy Manor on Saturday, where they got into a physical fight and proceeded to be disowned. That left a lot of blanks to be filled in, but it was somewhere to start. He glanced at the clock and did a double take, then shot out of his room, leaving the paper, the magazine, and his diagram out on his desk. He should have started breakfast ten minutes ago.


End file.
